cies; but, on the contrary, to receive Christ as a sacrament, either species is sufficient; as either species, and every particle of either species, contains Christ entire in his whole humanity and in his whole divinity; not by the change effected in the consecration, for that produces the body or the blood alone, but by the intimate union of his divine person with his body, blood and soul; which, having once assumed, the Son of God never relinquished, nor allowed to separate, except at his death; when his body, blood and soul were separated, not from the divinity, but from each other, for the short space of three days.

The Catholic Church further holds, that Christ is present in the sacrament, as long as the appearance and qualities of bread or wine continue; and that when these are destroyed, either in the stomach of the receiver, or by any other means, then Christ is no longer there. Finally, the Catholic Church believes, that by the words, "Do this in commemoration of me," our all-powerful Redeemer ordained his Apostles Priests of the new law, empowering and commanding them to do what he had done; namely, to change bread and wine into his body and his blood, and offer them up in sacrifice : that this power, together with all the others necessary for the permanency of his religion, is transmitted to their successors, the priests of the Catholic Church: that, consequently, Christ, in his humanity and divi

nity, is present on every altar where Mass is celebrated that this daily sacrifice, is substantially and meritoriously, the same, as the bloody sacrifice of the cross, because the divine victim is the same in both: and, that it is likewise a commemoration of his death, because the mode, and only the mode of oblation is different; the former being effected by the real effusion of his mortal blood from his mortal body, producing that separation of body and soul which constitutes death; the latter consisting in the two separate acts and effects of consecration, as I have above explained; by which, the reality on the altar representing the reality on the cross-and the separate change of the bread into the body, and of the wine into the blood, representing the mortal separation of the blood, and, consequently, of the soul, from the body on the cross-we "shew the death of the Lord until he come."

Such, my brethren, is the doctrine of the Church; such is the prodigy of transubstantiation in the blessed Eucharist; such is the legacy our dying Jesus left us. And is there herein any thing impossible to God? Who dares ask the blasphemous question? Shall He, who made all things out of nothing, not be able to change one thing into another, preserving still the same appearance? A creation is far more difficult than a change. Shall He, who converted water into wine with all its qualities, not have power to convert bread into his body without the change

of qualities? If there be a difference in the miracles, the former was the greater, because the change was greater. Shall He who, in his own divine person, caused God, that is, himself, to become man, be born, live, and die as man, and rise again-shall He not have power to make the bread become his body? The distance between the latter, (for both bread and body are creatures,) is nothing to the distance between the formerthe creator and the creature—God and man. Shall He, who is the same being with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and yet not the same person; He, who is really distinct from both, yet subsists, with both, in the one, simple, uncomposed, and undivided essence-shall He not do what we cannot comprehend? Oh! let those, who deny this power to Jesus, cast the scriptures altogether aside, and deny, on the same ground of incomprehensibility, his creation, his miracles, his incarnation, and his consubstantiality with the Father and the Holy Ghost! The change, therefore, of the bread into his body, or of the wine into his blood, that is, Transubstantiation, has in it nothing impossible to Christ.

But their simultaneous existence in various places is impossible, is it? The body of Christ passed through the rock of the sepulchre and the wood of the door, both uninjured, after his resurrection. What is the difference, as to possibility, for two bodies to b in the one place, or for the one

body to be in two places? None. Christ was seen by Paul after his ascension; not in a vision, but in reality. For Paul says: "He was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven. Then he was seen by more than 500 brethren at once. After that he was seen by James, then by all the Apostles: and last of all he was seen by me, as by one born out of due time." Paul, then, saw him as the others had done, namely, in his body, risen from the dead; for "See my hands and feet," said he to them, "that it is I myself: feel and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have." Yet Christ had ascended into heaven, several months before Paul saw him on his way to Damascus-heaven he will not leave until he come to judge the world-therefore the body of our Lord was in two places at the same time. If in two, why not in three? why not in more? And if, out of the sacrament, why not, in it?

But, is it the divine body of Jesus alone, that can be in several places at once? No. Any body, any creature, can be so, if Jesus please. He created all things: he therefore gave his creatures a place, when before they had none. The difference between no place, and place, is far greater than between one and ever so many places. He fed five thousand with five loaves, and four thousand with seven. Did he increase the number of loaves by the creation of new ones? Far from it. The text expressly says,

that he distributed the loaves-the five-the seven-no more-to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. The same loaves, then, were in the hands and mouths of thousands at once-a sample of that miraculous power, by which the one sacramental body of the Son of God, without any pluralization of itself, is eaten by the faithful in all parts of the universe at one and the same time.

But the infidel, who believes not the scripture, will tell me, that I am proving one impossibility by another. Scripture apart, then, for a moment I will prove, from naked reason, that God can make a body present in many places at once. A body, in motion, can have its velocity increased ad infinitum, to any degree; and the Almighty can, at any moment, give it a velocity, not sensibly differing from infinite. Suppose, then, that such all-but infinite velocity is one of the attributes of the body of Christ. It evidently follows, that his body can pass from one end to the other of the universe, and through every single point of the universe, and in all directions throughout the universe, in a shorter time than the twinkle of an eye; and therefore can be present over and over again in every spot of the creation, at any one sensible instant of time. Thus, not only is this simultaneous locality of the consecrated body possible to Omnipotence, but even our own weak minds can conceive a mode for its possibility. Nay, every body, while in motion, must be, at every single moment, in more than one place. For